I think "big" names who dropped out of EBI 6 are regretting it.

[jaysculls]

I think a lot of the "big" name competitors who dropped out of EBI lost out on a lot of exposure last night. The event was very entertaining in my opinion and on many forums and areas I saw posts of people saying "This was my first grappling match I ever watched and it was entertaining"...to that extent. The plus of it being on fight pass is that there is a very large amount of casual fans and non-submission grapplers on it who just stumbled upon the show and watch it.

 

[anaconda]

I doubt it.

If anything, I think they're happier. What does this do to Yuri Simoes' brand, after he was finally making a name for himself outside of hardcore fans? Now he's the guy that got tapped by the kid.

I also doubt a lot of casual fans watched. It was a good show, though, so hopefully. The ruleset is still a turnoff - now Gordon Ryan has a win over Yuri, and Yuri is definitely a superior grappler.

The rules definitely favor the guy with less to lose.That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that might keep away some of the top guys. I hope more people compete in it I just wish there was a better way to handle the overtime.

 

[Minnja]

The Polaris card a couple weeks ago was the first sub-only tournament I've streamed live. It was a good event but very long and drawn out. EBI6 was pretty awesome becuase of how quickly the matches came and also I like the OT rules. I think I prefer points-based rules or submission-only wiht some sort of OT. Submission-only with a 'draw' at the end if there is no sub seems to be a bit of a buzzkill.

 

[jaysculls]

And since so many non-submission grapplers had exposure to EBI 6 this is really one of the main grappling events that truly has a chance of getting more students in a competitors academy as well. The non-grappler has no idea what ADCC is or what IBJJF is. But many do have UFC fight pass and see many non-UFC events on it.

 

[anaconda]

I think the OT rules should be adjusted so that there's a time limit instead of just escaping and stopping. Like you have to get back to a neutral position within 2 min.

That way you don't just get to try one submission and if you fail you're done. Lot's of guys might not get the RNC or armbar, but might have setups that follow up to that.

 

[jaysculls]

I doubt it.

If anything, I think they're happier. What does this do to Yuri Simoes' brand, after he was finally making a name for himself outside of hardcore fans? Now he's the guy that got tapped by the kid.

I also doubt a lot of casual fans watched. It was a good show, though, so hopefully. The ruleset is still a turnoff - now Gordon Ryan has a win over Yuri, and Yuri is definitely a superior grappler.

The rules definitely favor the guy with less to lose.That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that might keep away some of the top guys. I hope more people compete in it I just wish there was a better way to handle the overtime.

If a person doesn't want to compete because they are worried they are going to lose in front of a big audience against a "no name" then for me personally I don't care to see them in the show anyway. I'm not a fan of that attitude. At least Yuri put it out on the line.

No other stream of a grappling event had the chance of non-grapplers getting access. This is the first.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

I doubt it.

If anything, I think they're happier. What does this do to Yuri Simoes' brand, after he was finally making a name for himself outside of hardcore fans? Now he's the guy that got tapped by the kid.

I also doubt a lot of casual fans watched. It was a good show, though, so hopefully. The ruleset is still a turnoff - now Gordon Ryan has a win over Yuri, and Yuri is definitely a superior grappler.

The rules definitely favor the guy with less to lose.That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that might keep away some of the top guys. I hope more people compete in it I just wish there was a better way to handle the overtime.

How can you doubt it? We get it you don't like the it rules, but you are fine with advantages, many times the best grappler in pints matches also doesn't win, stalling for dear life just to get an advantage and some more stalking the win? Does that sounds familiar? It happenes, most of the times the best grappler wins, but sometimes, not. In every rule set the best or favorite doesn't always win, it happens in most sports also.

There's been 6 ebis at least in 5 of them, the best sub grappler won, this has been the first tournament where a dark horse won. Gordon took care of business, yes yuri made 300 ibjjf points on him, but who knows if he was going to be able defend better if he wanted to retain guard, he seemed to do better than Garry also, who yuri pretty much ran over.

Top guys will compete as the money increases, may be a show up money should be guarantee or some money for the semi finalist or something like that, but as jay said, tons of casuals probably watched the event, and now know who jury Gordon and rustam are, in one event they got more name recognition that what they could achieve during years and years of regular competition

 

[mataleaos]

Well this was the most stacked one and it will only get moreso as the money increases. I enjoyed it a lot. I wish it had maybe been 25 mins shorter but it's hard to do that with the OT format they have. They were smart to not have a kids match between each round of matches like they've done before.

 

[Zankou]

So far as I can tell, this rule set is making for way more exciting matches.

As for 'better grappler,' that is primarily determined by rule set anyways.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I wish they just had judging. Who went for more subs? Who dominated positionally if there weren't a lot of sub attempts? The pro event I just fought in used judges, and it went really smoothly. I don't think there were any robberies, though of course people will always disagree on the outcome of genuinely close matches. EB's overtime rule isn't bad, but judging on the basis of close submission attempts followed by positional dominance and/or aggression/pushing the pace if no subs were close is better IMO.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

I wish they just had judging. Who went for more subs? Who dominated positionally if there weren't a lot of sub attempts? The pro event I just fought in used judges, and it went really smoothly. I don't think there were any robberies, though of course people will always disagree on the outcome of genuinely close matches. EB's overtime rule isn't bad, but judging on the basis of close submission attempts followed by positional dominance and/or aggression/pushing the pace if no subs were close is better IMO.

Metamoris did that, it went horrible. Judges is awful solution, who's to say a sub was very close to happen or the player was just trying to impress judges? Why does it matter to go for subs? In a sub only tournament, you can spam sub attempts and not really get penalized for, worst thing is to get your guard pass; not such a big deal, Wolfman would probably win every tournament since he could go for unorthodox subs from most places. Positional control is important, but important for what? If it's a sub only tournament why is it important to have positional control? May be the dude who's on bottom likes to be in bottom side control, may be he likes to bait. It really makens no sense, if you are pro judges, well why not just use points? At the end, points is based on positional control, and advantages are given by sub attempts, at least with points know very well why you won or lost...

 

[Balto]

The value of exposure changes a lot depending on where you are in your grappling career.

Exposure changes the conversation, gets new names involved, shifts around rankings, etc. Exposure changes the status quo.

Guys who are already at the top aren't interested in changing the status quo. They are more interested in getting as many paydays as possible during the relatively short time they have at the top.

I have to agree with anaconda that I doubt "big" names who dropped out are regretting it. They will probably identify most closely with Yuri (he's the closest to their situation), and they will probably see that he got paid $0 and lost some of his shine under a different ruleset.

Up and comers are going to identify with Gordon and feel exactly the opposite. Gordon was a huge winner, making $25K and shaking up the status quo significantly.

I think the EBI tournament strongly favors the up and comer, young gun type. I am actually sort of glad that it does because just about every other tournament out there favors the status quo.

This is an interest format, it entertains, and it provides something that isn't really available anywhere else in the grappling world at the moment.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

The value of exposure changes a lot depending on where you are in your grappling career.

Exposure changes the conversation, gets new names involved, shifts around rankings, etc. Exposure changes the status quo.

Guys who are already at the top aren't interested in changing the status quo. They are more interested in getting as many paydays as possible during the relatively short time they have at the top.

I have to agree with anaconda that I doubt "big" names who dropped out are regretting it. They will probably identify most closely with Yuri (he's the closest to their situation), and they will probably see that he got paid $0 and lost some of his shine under a different ruleset.

Up and comers are going to identify with Gordon and feel exactly the opposite. Gordon was a huge winner, making $25K and shaking up the status quo significantly.

I think the EBI tournament strongly favors the up and comer, young gun type. I am actually sort of glad that it does because just about every other tournament out there favors the status quo.

This is an interest format, it entertains, and it provides something that isn't really available anywhere else in the grappling world at the moment.

Money is going to be the deciding factor at the end, matches going to ot will be unavoidable once elite guys face each other... Strong incentives will probably still Mather but I think at the end in orther to get the big names, there will have to be some money for the winner...

 

[Rikston]

I think a lot of the "big" name competitors who dropped out of EBI lost out on a lot of exposure last night. The event was very entertaining in my opinion and on many forums and areas I saw posts of people saying "This was my first grappling match I ever watched and it was entertaining"...to that extent. The plus of it being on fight pass is that there is a very large amount of casual fans and non-submission grapplers on it who just stumbled upon the show and watch it.

Any chance you could reccomend a few BJJ/Grappling forums, I'm not familiar with them all ?

 

[Balto]

I think only getting paid for submissions in regulation time is working out fine. The bigger issue is that the winner take all structure means that a lot of guys who are getting submissions in regulation time are getting paid $0 for it.

It's just an extremely top heavy pay structure. Imagine if the only guys in the NFL that got paid were the ones on the team that won the Superbowl.

 

[Kenny from MD]

Is there even a such thing as "damaging" one's "brand" in grappling? I have never heard of someone being discounted because they lost to so and so in an off match or tournament. BJJ is like MMA. EVERYONE loses. Roger lost, and then was dominate, and then came damn close to losing again before losing in MMA. Buchecha loses. Cyborg loses. Galvao loses. Pena loses. Miyaos and Keenan lose. It shouldn't be a deterrent to competing, because no one actually cares. And by no one cares I mean no one holds it against them.

 

[Kenny from MD]

I think the more interesting questions is how to incentivize participation, because obviously large cash prizes aren't the end all be all. What is it about preparation and injury that can be modified to ensure the guys who say they are going to compete, actually show up? This tournament was cool, but not half the event it should have been,

 

[Uchi Mata]

Metamoris did that, it went horrible. Judges is awful solution, who's to say a sub was very close to happen or the player was just trying to impress judges? Why does it matter to go for subs? In a sub only tournament, you can spam sub attempts and not really get penalized for, worst thing is to get your guard pass; not such a big deal, Wolfman would probably win every tournament since he could go for unorthodox subs from most places. Positional control is important, but important for what? If it's a sub only tournament why is it important to have positional control? May be the dude who's on bottom likes to be in bottom side control, may be he likes to bait. It really makens no sense, if you are pro judges, well why not just use points? At the end, points is based on positional control, and advantages are given by sub attempts, at least with points know very well why you won or lost...

The reason to use judges is that judging is essentially the only thing that prevents trying to game the rules, because whether someone is gaming rather than trying to go for submissions is not something you can really capture through a discrete set of rules. Not to mention the fact that judges are perfectly capable of telling if a sub attempt is legit or not. What you're arguing against is basically bad judging, which no one wants. But judging typically isn't that bad, despite a few easy to remember terrible decisions in any judged sport. So yeah, have judges, tell them to reward serious, close submission attempts, and if there aren't any of those or if the competitors are equal on that front, reward dominance and/or aggression. It's not that hard. Hell, you could probably pick 3 of the F12 regulars at random and let them judge matches and I bet we'd all be in agreement with them > 95% of the time. It's just not that hard if you're an experienced grappler to watch a match and determine who went harder for subs, and if no one got close, who was in control or pushing the pace more. That's all judging is.

As for why positional control is important, you very rarely see subs without positional control. That control might not be something the IBJJF recognizes (thinking mostly here of superior leg entanglements), but if you're maintaining strong positional control you are almost be definition closer to subbing your opponent that he is to subbing you. You're telling me that me having your back is an equal position in terms of likelihood to get a sub? Come on. Besides, if it's only a tie breaking criterion then the only way you'd have to worry about it is if you never got close to subbing your opponent, in which case your argument for saying you won a sub only match is pretty weak.

 

[Balto]

Is there even a such thing as "damaging" one's "brand" in grappling? I have never heard of someone being discounted because they lost to so and so in an off match or tournament. BJJ is like MMA. EVERYONE loses. Roger lost, and then was dominate, and then came damn close to losing again before losing in MMA. Buchecha loses. Cyborg loses. Galvao loses. Pena loses. Miyaos and Keenan lose. It shouldn't be a deterrent to competing, because no one actually cares. And by no one cares I mean no one holds it against them.

I think "brand damage" does happen unfortunately. It'd be great if it didn't, but I think in reality it does.

It is easier to see in MMA since being a true pro is much more of a thing there. It's why when managers identify a prospect, they protect that prospect and build his record with a string of easy matchups at the beginning to gain cage experience without much risk. This is because they know that if they throw him into the deep end right away, he might catch a few losses early on that could cripple his career.

Even at the top, I bet McGregor wishes he didn't take that fight with Diaz. You could kind of see it with his explanation after the fight about how hard it is to fight someone much bigger, heavier, etc. He bit off more than he could chew, and I think his brand took a hit from the loss. He got paid a ton for the fight so it's hard to feel bad for him, but I bet if he got a redo, he'd choose to stay in his weight class instead.

 

[anaconda]

Is there even a such thing as "damaging" one's "brand" in grappling? I have never heard of someone being discounted because they lost to so and so in an off match or tournament. BJJ is like MMA. EVERYONE loses. Roger lost, and then was dominate, and then came damn close to losing again before losing in MMA. Buchecha loses. Cyborg loses. Galvao loses. Pena loses. Miyaos and Keenan lose. It shouldn't be a deterrent to competing, because no one actually cares. And by no one cares I mean no one holds it against them.

All those guys you just mentioned have big brands because they won so much, with the exception of cyborg maybe. Cyborg hasn't won as much as those guys maybe but has a super exciting game and a great personality.

The brand matters, for sure, especially when you are making your living off of your gym and seminars. Do you think people are lining up for Yuri Simoes seminars? Yuri has been really good for a while but stayed largely under the radar. He beat Keenan more than once but still, Keenan has wayyy more appeal.

But there's a second point here, too - the money aspect. Basically you get put into a situation out of your control (someone on your back) and might lose a match because of it. Or you might lose because they escape faster than you. I just think it's so artificial, it is a virtual coin flip especially when the guys are close in level.